Mobile-based air crews assist search for oil rig explosion survivors

View full size(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)In this aerial photo taken in the Gulf of Mexico more than 50 miles southeast of Venice on Louisiana's tip, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig is seen burning Wednesday, April 21, 2010. In the minutes after an oil rig explosion south of Louisiana, aircraft crews from U.S. Coast Guard Aviation Training Center in Mobile were en route late Tuesday to aid in search and rescue efforts in the Gulf of Mexico.

Before dawn, the U.S. Coast Guard in Mobile also sent an 11-member team on the patrol boat Cobia to the oil rig, which continued burning through much of the day.

Since the explosion, helicopter crews returned every four hours or so to the Mobile command center, where they refueled, changed crews and went back out to the scene, about 100 miles south of Dauphin Island.

The crew of an HH-65C Dolphin rescue helicopter hoisted three people from the scene, while the crew of an HH-60 rescue helicopter lifted five others to safety.

The crews of two other local rescue planes searched for survivors and directed others in missions for most of Wednesday, said Lt. Jeremy Loeb, an instructor pilot at the aviation center in Mobile.

"It's been pretty much continuous operation since the first aircraft departed right at 11 p.m.," Loeb said.

At least 30 air crew members and 100 other support personnel worked on the rescue missions, said Lt. Scott Albrecht, a spokesman for the aviation training center in Mobile.

Lt. James McKnight, spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard in Mobile, said the cutter Cobia was dispatched from Mobile and on its way to the explosion site by 5 a.m. Wednesday.

By 11 a.m., the 87-foot patrol boat and its 11-member crew had made it to the burning oil rig.

While the boat has limited firefighting capability, McKnight said, the local crew's duties were to maintain a safety zone at the scene.

Six of the people injured in the explosion were taken by helicopter to the University of South Alabama Medical Center in Mobile on Wednesday, hospital spokesman Bob Lowry said. All but one were treated and released the same day.

USA offers the region's only Level 1 trauma center and has a burn center where the sixth unidentified patient was being treated Wednesday. His condition was not released.